keyboard-key
A simple utility for determining the KeyboardEvent.key
property from a keyboard event.
Install
yarn add keyboard-key
# or
npm install keyboard-key
Usage
getKey()
Get the key
property value from an event.
document.addEventListener('keydown', event => {
const key = keyboardKey.getKey(event)
switch (key) {
case 'Escape':
// handle escape key
break
default:
break
}
})
See MDN or the source for a full list of
key
values.
getCode()
You can also get the normalized keyCode
from an event. keyboard-key
includes a hash of key
names to keyCode
s for easy comparisons:
document.addEventListener('keydown', event => {
const code = keyboardKey.getCode(event)
switch (code) {
case keyboardKey.Escape: // 27
// handle escape key
break
default:
break
}
})
Why?
Most previous key identifying KeyboardEvent properties have been pressed have been deprecated in favor of Keyboard.key
.
KeyboardEvent.char
KeyboardEvent.charCode
KeyboardEvent.keyCode
KeyboardEvent.keyIdentifier
KeyboardEvent.keyLocation
KeyboardEvent.which
KeyboardEvent.key
Unfortunately, KeyboardEvent.key
does not yet have full browser support. Leaving the browsers without a reliable property for identifying keyboard event keys.
Locale Caveat
This utility interprets use of the shift key when inferring event key
values. Example, an event describing shift+/ would result in a key
value of ?. This logic assumes an en-US
locale keyboard layout. This will not work if you are using a different locale such as a German layout where / is shift+7.